


making it

by Ruriruri



Category: KISS (US Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 12:14:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16810384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruriruri/pseuds/Ruriruri
Summary: "If you can’t be relaxed and you can’t be funny, I guess you’ll just have to be a good lay." Ace attempts to instruct Paul in the art of getting girls. For CF.





	making it

**Author's Note:**

> For CF, who has drawn some of the most amazing KISS fanart for me. I'm seriously blown away by it and I hope you enjoy this Acefic!

Paul had decided to get his own place as soon as he graduated high school.

This decision was hampered extensively by a resume of cab-driving and deli meat-slicing, neither of which would pay for even a studio apartment in Queens. The occasional gigs he and his various bands had managed to get hadn’t ever been enough to pay for much more than a quarter-pounder at McDonalds. So he’d been pretty effectively stuck. Paul could tell himself all he wanted that it wasn’t permanent, that with how hard they were working, KISS would have to make it big at some point—and, well, it wasn’t as though he had a real job and still chose to live at home, like Gene, the miser—but the fact remained. There weren’t too many things quite as humiliating as being in your twenties and still living with your parents.

Being in your twenties, living with your parents, and having to ask your bandmate to spend the night at his house, which, as it turned out, was actually _his_ parents’ house, however, might top it.

Ace had been amiable enough about the whole deal, which struck Paul as mildly odd. He wouldn’t have even been Paul’s first choice, except that Gene’s mother always gave him some sort of Hungarian reception that seemed more Siberian than anything, and Gene’s bedroom floor was littered with comic fanzines, dirty briefs, and sugar-encrusted doughnut boxes he’d lifted from the Vogue offices. It was like navigating a landmine. Every step a sugar ant.

“My sister’s baby is a terror and my parents are driving me up the wall,” Paul had said, hoping to sound more casual and matter-of-fact than bitchy, lugging both their gear as they left practice. As usual. Ace had just kind of smiled.

“Are they telling you to get a real job?”

“They’re telling me to go back to college.” They were also telling him that using his student loan to buy his guitar three years ago had been a worthless investment. In the back of his mind, Paul was starting to worry that they might be right. If he’d kept at it, he’d have at least an associate’s by now—an associate’s in what, though, graphic design? Screw that. His grades had barely been good enough to graduate high school. No possible way he could’ve bridged over from community college to a four-year. No way.

He was set on his path. He _had_ to become a rockstar. In all of New York City, every busy, dirty, rotten inch of it full of respectable, boring people with their respectable, boring jobs that sucked the life out of every single one of them—millions of people, like a bunch of those mindless sugar ants in Gene’s bedroom—that was the only possible future remaining for Paul Stanley. He had the talent, had the band. All that was left was making it happen.

“They paying?”

“Hell, no.”

“Then don’t do it.” Half a block from what passed for their studio, Ace finally reached a hand out for his guitar case. “Isn’t your apartment that way?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

Ace tilted his head, looking at Paul. The alien wheels in his brain seemed like they were slowly turning, and Paul’s gaze went hurriedly from Ace’s face to his own guitar case, mentally preparing for a rejection that somehow didn’t come.

“Could’ve just asked, man. You can crash at my house.”

“Thanks.”

“Mom’ll even make you breakfast if you ask her nice.”

He’d said it so nonchalantly, so shamelessly that Paul was actually a little jealous.

And that was how, after a detour to a liquor store and a jostling, crammed bus ride, he’d ended up at Ace’s parents’ apartment. Paul had half-hoped to see them when he came in, find out who was responsible for creating someone as bizarre as Ace, but neither of them were in.

“Probably at my sister’s,” Ace mumbled after banging on, and then unlocking the door. The bottle of vodka he’d bought on the way was in a paper bag under his arm. Paul was still carrying both guitar cases, and every step made him slightly more tempted to drop Ace’s on his foot, place to sleep or no. “C’mon.”

The apartment was disappointingly normal. Not too different from his own parents.’ Same appliances. Same TV. Almost the same dowdy floral window curtains. The so-called greatest generation had turned the whole damn world into cookie-cutter replicas.

Ace immediately headed into the kitchen to rummage around for a bottle opener and a cup—which already wasn’t much of a surprise. Paul didn’t follow him in, busying himself with glancing around at the family photos in the small living room instead. Ace was easy enough to spot on the mantel, even in his grammar school First Communion garb, but something about seeing his childhood photos was almost disappointing. Stupid as it was, beyond stupid as it was, sometimes it really did seem like Ace ought to have come from another planet. Surrounded by evidence to the contrary, Paul was a little relieved when his bandmate returned, bottle opener and a single paper Dixie cup in one hand, the larger kind, for picnics, and the alcohol in the other.

“You can put the guitars in my room. I’ll show you.”

It was just the next door down from the kitchen. Ace’s bedroom was less slobby than Gene’s, although that wasn’t setting the bar too high. Less blandly normal than the rest of the house, at least, if only because of the massive pile of records (Jimi Hendrix’s _Are You Experienced_ was on top of the stack, unsurprisingly) and sizeable bottle collection on the chest of drawers, floor, and bedside table. Ace must have singlehandedly wiped out an entire liquor store’s inventory over the last several years. Impressive. Maybe depressive. Paul dropped the guitar cases just inside the doorway and Ace unceremoniously pushed a pile of folded laundry off the bed and onto the floor before gesturing for Paul to take a seat.

The only thing neatly in place in the entire bedroom was Ace’s gig shirt, which hung from a coat hanger on the closet door. It even looked ironed.

“Hey, I meant to tell you, I like the eagle.” Paul pointed to the shirt, maybe unnecessarily. Not that they’d had much chance to wear any of their gig clothes yet, but the silver eagle across the front really did suit the vibe they’d been trying to go for. Something dark and imposing, as far away from the flowery hippie crap as possible.

“Thanks. My mom helped sew it on.” Ace opened the bottle of vodka and poured himself a cup, staring at it before taking a swallow.

“Nice of her.” Really nice of her. A bit of bitterness had found its way to the back of Paul’s throat. Apparently, Gene wasn’t the only one with a parent supporting his goal. Meanwhile, here Paul was having to sew his own gig pants and Gene’s, too. Christ.

“She’s just glad I’m in a band again.” 

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.” Ace paused. “Hey, you want some?”

“Sure,” Paul said, and Ace wandered off, bringing back another Dixie cup from somewhere in the kitchen and filling it with the vodka with a flourish. Paul hadn’t had vodka before—hell if he’d tell Ace that, when Ace seemed like such an odd melding of worldly and otherworldly and awkwardly mundane—but he’d always heard it was strong, so he steeled himself up before taking a cautious sip.

He was disappointed. It didn’t taste like anything beyond that initial expected burn. It made it hard to judge the strength. Ace set the bottle on the floor and then flopped on the bed next to Paul, lying on his stomach across it, feet idly fidgeting in the air. Like he was anxious in his own bedroom. No, that wasn’t exactly it. Whether he was drinking or eating or just walking around, Ace seemed so off-balance and strange without a guitar in his hands, as if it were a missing appendage. The silence hung in the air for a nervous minute, one that Ace thankfully broke.

“Peter’s pretty down.”

“I would be, too, if I was his age and still trying to get somewhere.”

“Hey, he ain’t thirty yet, so we can still trust him.” Ace sort of shrugged. “I get it. He’s had a bad time.”

“Shit, who hasn’t?” Paul took another swallow. “If he’d quit talking about his dick I might care a little more.”

“He’s just looking for a place to put it. Gotta be careful with that makeup, he might get _real_ hard up.”

“He’s got a wife, pervert.”

“Maybe you’ve got better tits.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Ace’s feet tapped against the bed in what didn’t even qualify as a rhythm.

“I bet she was his high school sweetheart or some shit.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Guys like that just marry the first girl that lets them.”

More cynical than he’d counted on out of Ace. From what time they’d spent together, their lead guitarist had only gotten more pleasant as he got more booze in him. Paul glanced over at him, curious, but Ace didn’t elaborate—just added a question.

“Who was the first girl that let you?”

“I don’t remember her name,” a lie, “I was a busboy at a camp and she was cheating on her boyfriend with me. I mean, it wasn’t that great.”

“Fucking homewrecker!” Ace started laughing, and laughing hard. He sounded like Cesar Romero as the Joker, only about an octave and a half higher and twice as maniacal. “How old were you?”

“Sixteen?” Another lie. Closer to nineteen. “What about you?”

“Aw, Paulie, we don’t measure time in years on Jendell.”

“Are you serious about that alien crap?”

Ace rubbed his chin and smiled widely.

“Ask me again after I finish some more of this. I’ll even be honest.” He gulped down half the cup, trailing off. “I dunno. Getting chicks to let you… I mean, fuck, back in high school… they were so crazy about the Beatles. The Stones, too. Girls were just creaming themselves over them. Who the hell would want us that bad?” Snickering, he finished the cup, and then, as automatic as a record changing tracks, he reached over the side of the bed to retrieve the bottle and refill it. “Even if we make it. We got worse hair and worse accents. I only get girls ’cause they think I’m funny and they wanna feed me. I’m not gonna be getting any ’cause of my guitar playing.”

“How many girls have you had?”

“Fifty.”

“Bullshit.”

“Okay, fifteen.”

“ _Fifteen_?” Paul’s face contorted, lips pursed out in something like a pout, cheekbones scrunched up towards his eyes. “Oh, come on.”

“I’m serious! You only have, what, two or something?”

“Three!”

Ace cackled.

“Oh, Jesus. So one in high school and then what, Paulie?”

“God, Ace, I—”

“You’re not even that ugly! What were you doing, man, dating Mormons?” A snort and then another large gulp from the cup of vodka, shaking his head. “Three girls. Only laid three girls. I’m gonna cry.”

“I’m gonna pour this vodka on your face.”

“Go ahead. More for me that way.”

Paul looked from his half-full paper cup to Ace and settled on flipping him off, which only garnered him another laugh in response.

“Love you, too.”

He’d need more alcohol for this. Shit. He drained his cup, half-expecting Ace to refill it, but Ace didn’t. Paul reached for the bottle, only for Ace to snatch it first, sit up completely, and raise it over his head.

“Uh-uh. I need some details first.”

It would have been easy to grab the vodka back. Insultingly easy. Ace’s reflexes were shit, and the one-inch difference in their heights meant Paul would barely have to stretch to retrieve it. But that was probably exactly what Ace wanted, wrestling over cheap vodka, and Paul was already embarrassed enough to want to avoid anything that seemed like it was playing into Ace’s unsteady hands.

“On what?”

“On the girls, man.” Lackadaisically, Ace refilled his own cup from over his head. Somehow only a few drops of vodka spilled onto the bedcovers. “All three of them. I’m more worried about you making it than KISS making it at this point.”

“What do you care?”

“I dunno. Maybe I like you.” The bottle started to inch downward. God, Ace was too lazy to even keep it hovering in the air. “And maybe with my help you’ll get up to at least four.”

“I don’t need your help for that.”

“Five, okay. What’d you tell them?”

“That I wanted to do it? Shit, Ace, it’s not rocket science.”

“It is. Did you ever make them laugh?”

“I’m not funny.”

“There’s your problem. You take yourself so fucking seriously.” Ace squinted, lowered the bottle, and refilled Paul’s cup to the brim. “You got a stick up your ass and they’ve got their legs crossed. You relax and you get a lot further.”

“I’m relaxed. I’m just not funny.”

“Uh-huh. Drink your drink, Paulie.” Ace drained his own without so much as a shudder, then poured himself some more. Somewhat sacrilegiously, he set what was left of the bottle of vodka on _Are You Experienced_ , right on top of Jimi’s disapproving face. “Hell, if you can’t be relaxed and you can’t be funny, I guess you’ll just have to be a good lay.”

Paul nearly choked on his next gulp of vodka.

“You can’t help me there.”

“Sure, I can.” Ace frowned, lips drawing up in what might have been deep concentration or deepening drunkenness. “Isn’t that what you’re trying to do anyway, with the Starchild shit? A sexy alter-ego?”

“I hadn’t thought about it—’

“The rest of us look scary as hell and you look like you’re joining the ballet.” Ace’s giggle seemed to reverberate in the bedroom. Paul took another, longer swallow from his cup just to spite him. If he was going to spend the night being ribbed, at least he’d drink up as much of Ace’s alcohol as he could in the process. “Scoot over some.”

Paul shifted over.

“No, this way, face me—yeah.” Ace looked him up and down, from his ratty, not-very-hard-rock Coca-Cola t-shirt from when he was about thirty pounds heavier to his brown work pants to his red socks as Paul stared at the space between Ace’s head and his left shoulder. Too bad that space was right in front of the mirror, and he could watch his face starting to flush the longer Ace stared and the longer he was forced to wonder what in the hell Ace was looking for.

“What?”

Ace raised his palm.

“I’m trying to decide, y’know? Okay.”

“Okay?”

“It’s gonna be hard, Paul, but I think you can do it.” Ace took another long gulp, and then tossed his Dixie cup toward the wastepaper basket in the other corner of the room. Surprisingly, it made it in. “I think I can trust you with Jendell’s secrets of being a good lay.”

“Ace, don’t fuck around—”

“This is so you _can_ fuck around. Now.” Ace’s hands found their way to Paul’s knees, resting there so absently Paul almost didn’t notice. “What chicks dig is confidence, and you can fake that pretty good. But that’s not enough to make it. What you’re gonna need for that’s confidence _and_ technique.”

“What are you, Dale Carnegie?”

“Paul Daniel Frehley, at your fucking service, Mr. Eisen.” One hand inched up to Paul’s thigh, giving it a light squeeze. “All right, now, you gotta be real matter-of-fact. You gotta pretend this is just business and you aren’t hard as a rock. Can’t be desperate. You gotta take her,” and his other arm draped down Paul’s shoulder, “like you _know_ if she gives this up, she’s spending the rest of the night wondering what she missed.”

Paul’s hand on his Dixie cup was sweating. The vodka was finally giving that weird tipsy haze to the four corners of Ace’s bedroom, to Ace’s slightly long face, to Ace’s dark hair and sort of sleepy brown eyes. None of which should have been any motivation to finish off the cup, but it was drained and dropped on the floor before he realized it, throat dry as he managed—

“Does this really need a demonstration?”

“You wanna get laid more or not?”

Paul took a breath. Exhaled slowly.

“I wanna see what you’re going to do.”

“That’s the spirit. All right.” Ace licked his lips. “Now you’re gonna pull her in real tight—real tight. Just like this. Get your other arm around her. If she’s down, she’ll do the same.”

Ace was weirdly warm against him. Skinny as hell, another point of jealousy—Paul had resigned himself to watching every forkful he put in his mouth—but there was muscle there, too. Considering the guy was too lazy to carry his own equipment, that was a surprise.

“If she’s down,” Ace repeated.

“You are really damn lucky I’m humoring you here.” Paul put his hands on Ace’s bony shoulders, feeling both warmer and stupider by the second. His reflection in the vanity mirror looked—well, flushed, distracted. Drunk. But far less dismayed than it should have been. Far less. “I’m pretty sure Gene would’ve punched you in the face about five minutes ago.”

“Gene doesn’t need help. He could go down on Medusa.” The corners of Ace’s lips tilted upward. “What are you staring at?”

“Nothing.”

“No, you definitely are—” Ace turned his head but didn’t loosen his grip on Paul. “Fuck, are you staring at yourself in the mirror?”

“No—”

“You fucking are! Oh, Jesus, no wonder you wanna be a rockstar so bad! You got the ego already!”

Ace looked like he was about to crack up. Just die from laughter. He’d never live it down, not ever. Any second now and Ace would be laughing like a banshee on acid and tormenting him the rest of the night with what he’d mistaken for Paul’s narcissism. Unendurable. Even for a free room.

So Paul’s hands shifted from Ace’s shoulders to clasp behind his neck.

“If she’s down,” he said, and kissed Ace full on the mouth.

Ace’s response seemed delayed as an out-of-sync T.V. reporter. His eyes actually got wide—Paul hadn’t closed his when he went for it, unwilling to give Ace that much of an opening—and his lax arms stiffened a bit around Paul. His lips, surprisingly fairly soft, surprisingly fairly full, even without lipstick, tasted like vodka mixed with the leftover sandwiches from the deli Paul had passed around the band at practice.

Other than getting a tighter grip on him, Ace wasn’t doing anything. A closed-mouth kiss like those old Hollywood movies, except nothing else was Hollywood about it. Nothing Hollywood about two drunk guys fooling around on a bed together, _fuck,_ on a bed—Paul pulled back after a couple seconds, just to get a breath in, let the ramifications sink in, and only then did Ace start to react.

“Holy shit, Paul. You actually fucking did it.”

Paul swallowed.

“I didn’t think you would.” Ace grinned. “I really didn’t think you would. Shit, man, I’m impressed!”

“I—”

“No. No. Don’t. I said I’d get you to number four, right? Didn’t think you’d be in that big a hurry to get there, but hell, why not?” Light and easy, so light and easy, like they were talking about what diner to go to. Ace recovered quicker than anyone he’d ever seen. Just anyone. He couldn’t hope to reach that level of flippancy, that level of cool. Paul just sat there, feeling more idiotic and flushed and cornered by the second, and finally, he unclasped his hands from the back of Ace’s neck, arms drooping back towards his sides.

Except Ace grabbed both of them before they got there.

“Hey, man, it’s cool. Really.”

“It’s not like—”

“Shh.” Ace was smiling. Actually smiling. Paul made a weak, token effort at tugging his arms out of Ace’s grip, but it held fast, even as Ace leaned in again. Paul had to force himself not to stiffen up, turn his head the other way when he realized Ace was about to try whispering in his ear like he really was some chick he was trying to make it with. “Wasn’t bad! But you need practice. Lots of practice.”

“I’m really drunk.”

“Nah, you’re just a little tipsy. Give yourself some credit.” Ace paused. “C’mon. Let’s finish up the lesson. Lemme show you how it’s done. All right?” He let go of Paul’s arms, and Paul drew them back up to rest on the covers.

This was it. This was his chance to back out. Ace would let him. Probably without much of a fuss. The guy was so damn lazy he wouldn’t even pursue a real opportunity if it wasn’t handed to him on a silver platter. Or on his bed. Paul’s teeth dug into his lower lip, uncertainty emanating from every pore. Was he any different? Wasn’t he just as—just as content with what he had? Content with only letting three girls get close enough to fuck? Keyed-up over failures and defects they didn’t even know about, to the point he could barely summon up the nerve to ask them in the first place? Some rockstar. Some rockstar wannabe. At least Ace had guts. At least Ace went for what he wanted in the moment, even if it was something as shortsighted and queer as—

“Yeah.”

“Good choice,” and Ace slid his tongue into Paul’s mouth, hands clasping his shoulders. So fast Paul could hardly fathom it, hardly keep up as Ace’s lips met his again and again, so effortless and supremely confident and hot against his own. Paul’s tongue was darting past Ace’s mouth before long, catching his cheek, his neck in quick moments, his awkward hands finally grasping Ace’s shirt and the side of Ace’s face as if grasping him might stop his descent—or pull him deeper in.

His back met the bed almost before he realized it, Ace pushing him down by the shoulder, one hand slipping under his t-shirt, tracing his abdomen. Paul tried not to squirm too much—it was weird, broad, callused hands stroking his skin; it was weird, touching the start of stubble on Ace’s jawline instead of the smooth skin of a girl—but Ace didn’t seem to mind, apart from a small laugh here and there that Paul smothered with his mouth. Leaning over him, Ace looked like a painting from one of those old masters, face all lit up and sure and knowing. Paul wanted that. He wanted that enough to tangle his fingers in Ace’s brown hair, enough to greedily nip and suck against his throat as if he could get his essence that way. The grunts Ace was offering in return were as gratifying as the shouts from the crowds Paul hadn’t even heard yet, warming, thrilling, his hard-on a wild promise of things to come. The hem of Ace’s shirt was in his fist, getting yanked up, when he heard the click of the apartment door being unlocked, and the sound of footsteps.

“Paul? You back from practice?”

Ace jerked up and off of Paul so fast it was nearly comical, shoving Paul’s shirt back down in a quick, rough afterthought. Paul sat up on his elbows, still breathing hard, fingers raking through his hopelessly matted curls.

“Yeah, Ma!” Ace called out. “Got finished early. Uh. I got one of the guys from the band over. Stanley, yeah? He’s spending the night.”

“That’s fine, honey. … He’s here? You two come in—Paul, did you eat anything? You know you need to—”

After a glance in the mirror, Ace got up entirely, with another “yeah, Ma, we’re coming—Dad here?” and a brief jab of Paul’s ribs.

“Let’s finish this lesson later,” he said, the grin starting to crook back on his face. “I think you need some more practice, Starchild.”


End file.
